The mild mannered moon

Only showing its

fully illuminated face

But once a synodic month.

The manipulating moon

Born of the earth mother

And driving its tides

To ebb and to flood.

The manic mad moon

Causing havoc with emotions

Wild and dangerous

A lunatic nightmare.

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days come and go

no stopping them

like leaves that wither on the stem

yellow they drop

no longer free

now mere atoms in eternity

we watch them fall

with them we go

flotsam on that tidal flow

a wave that climbs

into the sky

going none knows where or why

washing the stars

bathing black holes

dousing galaxies like blazing coals

is ...

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On the beach bits were sharp with old shells

Sand dry as dust cushioned our feet

In  a rock pool we saw the starfish

I'd never seen anything so neat

I've often thought of that creature

Its wonderful colourful ways

Moving at its own pace, shimmering,

In a mysterious starfish haze

Soon we saw another, from a family of gems

We stared and discussed Nature's pride

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Is sobriety killing my creativity?
Or is it better off this way?
It's hard to find some comfort in this
When all I know is pain

I couldn't go on much longer
With the way I was feeling inside
But who am I now that I'm sober?
Loss of identity will reside

Let me feel the lines of your hands
From your finger tips on down
I don't know how to fix me
But your skin is safe and sound

My a...

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I am

barefoot

on a far tide line

sand rippled

spread

with estuary shells

with oystercatchers

soft where rills run down

or the sea pools

behind a half-sunk stone

or a mooring chain

I am

watching

moored yachts

swinging to the tide turn

above their sunken reflections

angled lines of cirrostratus

echoed below the horizon

in the mirror gloss sea

...

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harbour entrance swell

river bridge

above the beach

the scraping rattle

millions of stones

sucked off the beach

returning to the sea

beside the harbour wall

crossing waves

rearing waves

joining

breaking in foam

crashing

onto the shingle

the vast pull

of the receding sea

the undertow of sound

the bay

grey brown sea

under a blue sky

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In the sun's mid-day heat

I see the tall field grasses flow, swell

and come towards me in waves               

surging before the day's wind

the seed-head spume constantly bowing

seems to fall on the field strand where I stand.

The rhythmic onslaught of the waves

continues through the long afternoon - 

a tide of wind-driven swells and rollers

always flowing to my feet, w...

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It was all in her eyes

When he said

I

He saw the tear

When he breathed

L

O

V

E

He knew her mind

When he stopped

Outside the mist rolled in

As ropes slipped off bollards

When he left

He heard her say

M

Y

When the door slammed

He hoped she said

L

O

V

E

When he heard

It was all in his mind

Outside the engine sta...

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This piece, over twenty years old, came to me largely in a dream about being a poet.

Adamson Adrift

We sat on the wharf at East Balmain,

where the ferries make the Harbour

never still,

and Robert Adamson floated away

with grace on the violent tide,

as we looked on the streams

of the living

(as in air, we were in motion)

and in action, and relative calm

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Low ripples creep in eager waves,

Reclaiming grains of wind-blown sand,

To lay them flat within the damp, cemented matrix,

By degree, each one,

In exposed space,

Is over-run,

Again with water weight,

Where fine currents caress and roll,

The grains that had once been free.

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And so I walked the full extent of the tide,

To where once-fronds of bladder wrack lie,

Fallen branches where air balloons find their specific gravity awry,

A rippling sandscape sculpt by rolling water,

Carpeted with greening algal strands plumose in the quiescent remaining pools,

Seagulls at the edge,

Scouring newly exposed beach,

Beneath the dark-faced island.

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A full moon, and the tide swollen by rain;

Rain lashing on the window, wild as rage -

My pen is stirring on the unspoilt page

In scribble circles, feeling round this pain.

Like tunnels leading deeper than my mind,

Or ropes in hopeless tangles, loosely curled,

Sprawling intestines looped around the world

My pen describes; this pain is ill-defined.

The ...

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